Tallahassee: Bo Nailed It

It’s not Bo’s system. It’s called Kolas Points. The system is very fair. Say what you will about the NCAA XC season, the formula for selecting automatic and at-large qualifiers is superior to sports like basketball

Spainflyer wrote:

Looks like Bo nailed it with his algorithm/ predictions. Great job! Now, I’m interested to know just how well the at-large teams have done in the past. NCAA website groups all qualifiers together so a bit difficult to tell from there. And, is the system fair – three at-large teams each from Great Lakes and Mountain, none from South Central? I suppose that’s why Bo’s system works, looking at head-to-head competitions and results against a common opponent. Thoughts?

The south Central doesn't even deserve the two auto bids they get it's an absolute trash region.

NCAA xc is arguably the most fair process of any NCAA team sport qualification.

Look at last year for example with no quality points when Furman ran once and then complained their way into the field only to come DFL.

Kolas points are great

The hard part every year is checking season results really carefully to make sure you included them all and didn't miss any B teams. Then you have to re-check as regional results come in. Jon Gault did that so most of the credit for accuracy goes to him!

The qualifying system part of the NCAA rulebook is only a couple pages long. If your season results are all correct, then you just have to follow the rules and you should get it right. But that's easier said than done, we've been wrong before. People used to do it out by hand and compare notes on the forums.

Ha, of course it's not "my" system! I don't know the history of the NCAA coming up with this qualification system, it's before my time. Kolas is actually the name Flotrack gave their calculator, but people use it now to refer to the system in general.

-Bo

I think the system is pretty good for two reasons. (1) It works very well at selecting the top teams. (Top teams in November, not in September.) (2) Every team controls their own destiny. If they qualify, they earned their way in at regionals and over the course of the season. If they didn't qualify, they almost always just didn't get it done when they needed to.

One knock is that auto qualifiers from bad regions can be worse than teams in tough regions who didn't make it. I agree it can happen, but I don't think it's a huge problem. First, I think it's healthy for the sport to have representation from all over the country. It maybe helps even things out in the long run by spreading talent, recruiting, and interest in the sport a bit more broadly. Second, picking the 25-31st best teams correctly is only so important. Third, if you look at historical results, it's not like those teams getting dead last every year. They usually run like they belong at the meet.

I also think the regionals are good, competitive meets that are good for the sport including the teams finishing in the middle and back who use it as an end-of-season event to stack up against the best in the region. Also, sometimes an unexpected school like Bradley will get really good and make nationals. You don't have to do anything special with your schedule or convince a committee. Just run the same meets you run every year, but faster.

+1

Agreed. Nice summary

Spainflyer wrote:

Looks like Bo nailed it with his algorithm/ predictions. Great job! Now, I’m interested to know just how well the at-large teams have done in the past. NCAA website groups all qualifiers together so a bit difficult to tell from there. And, is the system fair – three at-large teams each from Great Lakes and Mountain, none from South Central? I suppose that’s why Bo’s system works, looking at head-to-head competitions and results against a common opponent. Thoughts?

South Central is Gawd awful. Usually very little depth in that Region. Mountain and Great Lakes are both very deep.

Rufus da Trufus wrote:

The south Central doesn't even deserve the two auto bids they get it's an absolute trash region.

This is just not true. Arkansas and Texas both deserve to be at nationals. Everyone else in the region is terrible. But those two are good teams.

Not on the women’s side. Rice has no business going to nationals ahead of Kentucky. They just got auto bid from getting 2nd in worst region. Kentucky finished a solid third behind NC State and North Carolina in Southeast regional and came within 2 points of Alabama in the SEC conference meet. And Providence and Villanova got 4th and 5th in Big East conference meet behind U CONN.